The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo Book 1) by Rick Riordan (z-lib.org).epub

I was about to say, we’re doomed, but that seemed both obvious and
depressing.

The peach baby turned toward the nosoi. For a moment, I feared he would
make some hellish alliance—an axis of evil between illnesses and fruits.

The middle corpse, the one with the peach in his forehead, inched backward.
“Do not interfere,” he warned the karpos. “We will not allooow—”

The peach baby launched himself at the nosos and bit his head off.
That is not a figure of speech. The karpos’s fanged mouth unhinged,
expanding to an unbelievable circumference, then closed around the cadaver’s
head, and chomped it off in one bite.
Oh, dear…I hope you weren’t eating dinner as you read that.
In a matter of seconds, the nosos had been torn to shreds and devoured.
Understandably, the other two nosoi retreated, but the karpos crouched and
sprang. He landed on the second corpse and proceeded to rip it into plague-
flavored Cream of Wheat.
The last spirit dissolved into glittering smoke and tried to fly away, but the
peach baby spread his leafy wings and launched himself in pursuit. He opened
his mouth and inhaled the sickness, snapping and swallowing until every wisp of
smoke was gone.
He landed in front of Meg and belched. His green eyes gleamed. He did not
appear even slightly sick, which I suppose wasn’t surprising, since human
diseases don’t infect fruit trees. Instead, even after eating three whole nosoi, the
little fellow looked hungry.
He howled and beat his small chest. “Peaches!”
Slowly, Percy raised his sword. His nose was still red and runny, and his face
was puffy. “Meg, don move,” he snuffled. “I’m gonna—”
“No!” she said. “Don’t hurt him.”
She put her hand tentatively on the creature’s curly head. “You saved us,”
she told the karpos. “Thank you.”
I started mentally preparing a list of herbal remedies for regenerating severed
limbs, but to my surprise, the peach baby did not bite off Meg’s hand. Instead he
hugged Meg’s leg and glared at us as if daring us to approach.
“Peaches,” he growled.
“He likes you,” Percy noted. “Um…why?”
“I don’t know,” Meg said. “Honestly, I didn’t summon him!”
I was certain Meg had summoned him, intentionally or unintentionally. I
also had some ideas now about her godly parentage, and some questions about
this “guardian” that the spirits had mentioned, but I decided it would be better to
interrogate her when she did not have a snarling carnivorous toddler wrapped

around her leg.
“Well, whatever the case,” I said, “we owe the karpos our lives. This brings

to mind an expression I coined ages ago: A peach a day keeps the plague spirits
away!”

Percy sneezed. “I thought it was apples and doctors.”
The karpos hissed.
“Or peaches,” Percy said. “Peaches work too.”
“Peaches,” agreed the karpos.
Percy wiped his nose. “Not criticizing, but why is he grooting?”
Meg frowned. “Grooting?”
“Yeah, like thah character in the movie…only saying one thing over and
over.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t seen that movie,” I said. “But this karpos does seem to
have a very…targeted vocabulary.”
“Maybe Peaches is his name.” Meg stroked the karpos’s curly brown hair,
which elicited a demonic purring from the creature’s throat. “That’s what I’ll call
him.”
“Whoa, you are not adopting thah—” Percy sneezed with such force, another
irrigation pipe exploded behind him, sending up a row of tiny geysers. “Ugh.
Sick.”
“You’re lucky,” I said. “Your trick with the water diluted the spirit’s power.
Instead of getting a deadly illness, you got a head cold.”
“I hate head colds.” His green irises looked like they were sinking in a sea of
bloodshot. “Neither of you got sick?”
Meg shook her head.
“I have an excellent constitution,” I said. “No doubt that’s what saved me.”
“And the fact thah I hosed the smoke off of you,” Percy said.
“Well, yes.”
Percy stared at me as if waiting for something. After an awkward moment, it
occurred to me that if he was a god and I was a worshipper, he might expect
gratitude.
“Ah…thank you,” I said.
He nodded. “No problem.”
I relaxed a little. If he had demanded a sacrifice, like a white bull or a fatted
calf, I’m not sure what I would’ve done.
“Can we go now?” Meg asked.
“An excellent idea,” I said. “Though I’m afraid Percy is in no condition—”
“I can drive you the rest of the way,” he said. “If we can get my car out from
between those trees…” He glanced in that direction and his expression turned
even more miserable. “Aw, Hades no….”

even more miserable. “Aw, Hades no….”
A police cruiser was pulling over on the side of the road. I imagined the

officers’ eyes tracing the tire ruts in the mud, which led to the plowed-down
fence and continued to the blue Toyota Prius wedged between two peach trees.
The cruiser’s roof lights flashed on.

“Great,” Percy muttered. “If they tow the Prius, I’m dead. My mom and Paul
need thah car.”

“Go talk to the officers,” I said. “You won’t be any use to us anyway in your
current state.”

“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” Meg said. “You said the camp is right over those
hills?”

“Right, but…” Percy scowled, probably trying to think straight through the
effects of his cold. “Most people enter camp from the east, where Half-Blood
Hill is. The western border is wilder—hills and woods, all heavily enchanted. If
you’re not careful, you can get lost….” He sneezed again. “I’m still not even
sure Apollo can get in if he’s fully mortal.”

“I’ll get in.” I tried to exude confidence. I had no alternative. If I was unable
to enter Camp Half-Blood…No. I’d already been attacked twice on my first day
as a mortal. There was no plan B that would keep me alive.

The police car’s doors opened.
“Go,” I urged Percy. “We’ll find our way through the woods. You explain to
the police that you’re sick and you lost control of the car. They’ll go easy on
you.”
Percy laughed. “Yeah. Cops love me almost as much as teachers do.” He
glanced at Meg. “You sure you’re okay with the baby fruit demon?”
Peaches growled.
“All good,” Meg promised. “Go home. Rest. Get lots of fluids.”
Percy’s mouth twitched. “You’re telling a son of Poseidon to get lots of
fluids? Okay, just try to survive until the weekend, will you? I’ll come to camp
and check on you guys if I can. Be careful and—CHOOOO!”
Muttering unhappily, he touched the cap of his pen to his sword, turning it
back into a simple ballpoint. A wise precaution before approaching law
enforcement. He trudged down the hill, sneezing and sniffling.
“Officer?” he called. “Sorry, I’m up here. Can you tell me where Manhattan
is?”
Meg turned to me. “Ready?”
I was soaking wet and shivering. I was having the worst day in the history of
days. I was stuck with a scary girl and an even scarier peach baby. I was by no
means ready for anything. But I also desperately wanted to reach camp. I might
find some friendly faces there—perhaps even jubilant worshippers who would

find some friendly faces there—perhaps even jubilant worshippers who would
bring me peeled grapes, Oreos, and other holy offerings.

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Peaches the karpos grunted. He gestured for us to follow, then scampered
toward the hills. Maybe he knew the way. Maybe he just wanted to lead us to a
grisly death.
Meg skipped after him, swinging from tree branches and cartwheeling
through the mud as the mood took her. You might’ve thought we’d just finished
a nice picnic rather than a battle with plague-ridden cadavers.
I turned my face to the sky. “Are you sure, Zeus? It’s not too late to tell me
this was an elaborate prank and recall me to Olympus. I’ve learned my lesson. I
promise.”
The gray winter clouds did not respond. With a sigh, I jogged after Meg and
her homicidal new minion.

A walk through the woods
Voices driving me bonkers
I hate spaghetti

I SIGHED WITH RELIEF. “This should be easy.”
Granted, I’d said the same thing before I fought Poseidon in hand-to-hand

combat, and that had not turned out to be easy. Nevertheless, our path into Camp
Half-Blood looked straightforward enough. For starters, I was pleased I could
see the camp, since it was normally shielded from mortal eyes. This boded well
for me getting in.

From where we stood at the top of a hill, the entire valley spread out below
us: roughly three square miles of woods, meadows, and strawberry fields
bordered by Long Island Sound to the north and rolling hills on the other three
sides. Just below us, a dense forest of evergreens covered the western third of the
vale.

Beyond that, the buildings of Camp Half-Blood gleamed in the wintry light:
the amphitheater, the sword-fighting stadium, the open-air dining pavilion with
its white marble columns. A trireme floated in the canoe lake. Twenty cabins
lined the central green where the communal hearth fire glowed cheerfully.

At the edge of the strawberry fields stood the Big House: a four-story
Victorian painted sky blue with white trim. My friend Chiron would be inside,
probably having tea by the fireplace. I would find sanctuary at last.

My gaze rose to the far end of the valley. There, on the tallest hill, the
Athena Parthenos shone in all its gold-and-alabaster glory. Once, the massive
statue had graced the Parthenon in Greece. Now it presided over Camp Half-
Blood, protecting the valley from intruders. Even from here I could feel its
power, like the subsonic thrum of a mighty engine. Old Gray Eyes was on the
lookout for threats, being her usual vigilant, no-fun, all-business self.

Personally, I would have installed a more interesting statue—of myself, for

Personally, I would have installed a more interesting statue—of myself, for
instance. Still, the panorama of Camp Half-Blood was an impressive sight. My
mood always improved when I saw the place—a small reminder of the good old
days when mortals knew how to build temples and do proper burnt sacrifices.
Ah, everything was better in ancient Greece! Well, except for a few small
improvements modern humans had made—the Internet, chocolate croissants, life
expectancy.

Meg’s mouth hung open. “How come I’ve never heard about this place? Do
you need tickets?”

I chuckled. I always enjoyed the chance to enlighten a clueless mortal. “You
see, Meg, magical borders camouflage the valley. From the outside, most
humans would spy nothing here except boring farmland. If they approached,
they would get turned around and find themselves wandering out again. Believe
me, I tried to get a pizza delivered to camp once. It was quite annoying.”

“You ordered a pizza?”
“Never mind,” I said. “As for tickets…it’s true the camp doesn’t let in just
anybody, but you’re in luck. I know the management.”
Peaches growled. He sniffed the ground, then chomped a mouthful of dirt
and spit it out.
“He doesn’t like the taste of this place,” Meg said.
“Yes, well…” I frowned at the karpos. “Perhaps we can find him some
potting soil or fertilizer when we arrive. I’ll convince the demigods to let him in,
but it would be helpful if he doesn’t bite their heads off—at least not right
away.”
Peaches muttered something about peaches.
“Something doesn’t feel right.” Meg bit her nails. “Those woods…Percy said
they were wild and enchanted and stuff.”
I, too, felt as if something was amiss, but I chalked this up to my general
dislike of forests. For reasons I’d rather not go into, I find them…uncomfortable
places. Nevertheless, with our goal in sight, my usual optimism was returning.
“Don’t worry,” I assured Meg. “You’re traveling with a god!”
“Ex-god.”
“I wish you wouldn’t keep harping on that. Anyway, the campers are very
friendly. They’ll welcome us with tears of joy. And wait until you see the
orientation video!”
“The what?”
“I directed it myself! Now, come along. The woods can’t be that bad.”

The woods were that bad.

The woods were that bad.
As soon as we entered their shadows, the trees seemed to crowd us. Trunks

closed ranks, blocking old paths and opening new ones. Roots writhed across the
forest floor, making an obstacle course of bumps, knots, and loops. It was like
trying to walk across a giant bowl of spaghetti.

The thought of spaghetti made me hungry. It had only been a few hours since
Sally Jackson’s seven-layer dip and sandwiches, but my mortal stomach was
already clenching and squelching for food. The sounds were quite annoying,
especially while walking through dark scary woods. Even the karpos Peaches
was starting to smell good to me, giving me visions of cobbler and ice cream.

As I said earlier, I was generally not a fan of the woods. I tried to convince
myself that the trees were not watching me, scowling and whispering among
themselves. They were just trees. Even if they had dryad spirits, those dryads
couldn’t possibly hold me responsible for what had happened thousands of years
ago on a different continent.

Why not? I asked myself. You still hold yourself responsible.
I told myself to stuff a sock in it.
We hiked for hours…much longer than it should have taken to reach the Big
House. Normally I could navigate by the sun—which shouldn’t be a surprise,
since I spent millennia driving it across the sky—but under the canopy of trees,
the light was diffuse, the shadows confusing.
After we passed the same boulder for the third time, I stopped and admitted
the obvious. “I have no idea where we are.”
Meg plopped herself down onto a fallen log. In the green light, she looked
more like a dryad than ever, though tree spirits do not often wear red sneakers
and hand-me-down fleece jackets.
“Don’t you have any wilderness skills?” she asked. “Reading moss on the
sides of trees? Following tracks?”
“That’s more my sister’s thing,” I said.
“Maybe Peaches can help.” Meg turned to her karpos. “Hey, can you find us
a way out of the woods?”
For the past few miles, the karpos had been muttering nervously, cutting his
eyes from side to side. Now he sniffed the air, his nostrils quivering. He tilted his
head.
His face flushed bright green. He emitted a distressed bark, then dissolved in
a swirl of leaves.
Meg shot to her feet. “Where’d he go?”
I scanned the woods. I suspected Peaches had done the intelligent thing.
He’d sensed danger approaching and abandoned us. I didn’t want to suggest that
to Meg, though. She’d already become quite fond of the karpos. (Ridiculous,

to Meg, though. She’d already become quite fond of the karpos. (Ridiculous,
getting attached to a small dangerous creature. Then again, we gods got attached
to humans, so I had no room to criticize.)

“Perhaps he went scouting,” I suggested. “Perhaps we should—”
APOLLO.
The voice reverberated in my head, as if someone had installed Bose
speakers behind my eyes. It was not the voice of my conscience. My conscience
was not female, and it was not that loud. Yet something about the woman’s tone
was eerily familiar.
“What’s wrong?” Meg asked.
The air turned sickly sweet. The trees loomed over me like trigger hairs of a
Venus flytrap.
A bead of sweat trickled down the side of my face.
“We can’t stay here,” I said. “Attend me, mortal.”
“Excuse me?” Meg said.
“Uh, I mean come on!”
We ran, stumbling over tree roots, fleeing blindly through a maze of
branches and boulders. We reached a clear stream over a bed of gravel. I barely
slowed down. I waded in, sinking shin-deep into the ice-cold water.
The voice spoke again: FIND ME.
This time it was so loud, it stabbed through my forehead like a railroad spike.
I stumbled, falling to my knees.
“Hey!” Meg gripped my arm. “Get up!”
“You didn’t hear that?”
“Hear what?”
THE FALL OF THE SUN, the voice boomed. THE FINAL VERSE.
I collapsed face-first into the stream.
“Apollo!” Meg rolled me over, her voice tight with alarm. “Come on! I can’t
carry you!”
Yet she tried. She dragged me across the river, scolding me and cursing until,
with her help, I managed to crawl to shore.
I lay on my back, staring wildly at the forest canopy. My soaked clothes
were so cold they burned. My body trembled like an open E string on an electric
bass.
Meg tugged off my wet winter coat. Her own coat was much too small for
me, but she draped the warm dry fleece over my shoulders. “Keep yourself
together,” she ordered. “Don’t go crazy on me.”
My own laughter sounded brittle. “But I—I heard—”
THE FIRES WILL CONSUME ME. MAKE HASTE!
The voice splintered into a chorus of angry whispers. Shadows grew longer
and darker. Steam rose from my clothes, smelling like the volcanic fumes of

and darker. Steam rose from my clothes, smelling like the volcanic fumes of
Delphi.

Part of me wanted to curl into a ball and die. Part of me wanted to get up and
run wildly after the voices—to find their source—but I suspected that if I tried,
my sanity would be lost forever.

Meg was saying something. She shook my shoulders. She put her face nose-
to-nose with mine so my own derelict reflection stared back at me from the
lenses of her cat-eye glasses. She slapped me, hard, and I managed to decipher
her words: “GET UP!”

Somehow I did. Then I doubled over and retched.
I hadn’t vomited in centuries. I’d forgotten how unpleasant it was.
The next thing I knew, we were staggering along, Meg bearing most of my
weight. The voices whispered and argued, tearing off little pieces of my mind
and carrying them away into the forest. Soon I wouldn’t have much left.
There was no point. I might as well wander off into the forest and go insane.
The idea struck me as funny. I began to giggle.
Meg forced me to keep walking. I couldn’t understand her words, but her
tone was insistent and stubborn, with just enough anger to outweigh her own
terror.
In my fractured mental state, I thought the trees were parting for us,
grudgingly opening a path straight out of the woods. I saw a bonfire in the
distance, and the open meadows of Camp Half-Blood.
It occurred to me that Meg was talking to the trees, telling them to get out of
the way. The idea was ridiculous, and at the moment it seemed hilarious.
Judging from the steam billowing from my clothes, I guessed I was running a
fever of about a hundred and six.
I was laughing hysterically as we stumbled out of the forest, straight toward
the campfire where a dozen teenagers sat making s’mores. When they saw us,
they rose. In their jeans and winter coats, with assorted weapons at their sides,
they were the dourest bunch of marshmallow roasters I had ever seen.
I grinned. “Oh, hi! I’m Apollo!”
My eyes rolled up in my head, and I passed out.

My bus is in flames
My son is older than me
Please, Zeus, make it stop

I DREAMED I WAS DRIVING the sun chariot across the sky. I had the top
down in Maserati mode. I was cruising along, honking at jet planes to get out of
my way, enjoying the smell of cold stratosphere, and bopping to my favorite
jam: Alabama Shakes’ “Rise to the Sun.”

I was thinking about transforming the Spyder into a Google self-driving car.
I wanted to get out my lute and play a scorching solo that would make Brittany
Howard proud.

Then a woman appeared in my passenger seat. “You’ve got to hurry, man.”
I almost jumped out of the sun.
My guest was dressed like a Libyan queen of old. (I should know. I dated a
few of them.) Her gown swirled with red, black, and gold floral designs. Her
long dark hair was crowned with a tiara that looked like a curved miniature
ladder—two gold rails lined with rungs of silver. Her face was mature but
stately, the way a benevolent queen should look.
So definitely not Hera, then. Besides, Hera would never smile at me so
kindly. Also…this woman wore a large metal peace symbol around her neck,
which did not seem like Hera’s style.
Still, I felt I should know her. Despite the elder-hippie vibe, she was so
attractive that I assumed we must be related.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Her eyes flashed a dangerous shade of gold, like a feline predator’s. “Follow
the voices.”
A lump swelled in my throat. I tried to think straight, but my brain felt like it
had been recently run through a Vitamix. “I heard you in the woods….Were you
—were you speaking a prophecy?”

—were you speaking a prophecy?”
“Find the gates.” She grabbed my wrist. “You’ve gotta find them first, you

dig?”
“But—”
The woman burst into flames. I pulled back my singed wrist and grabbed the

wheel as the sun chariot plunged into a nosedive. The Maserati morphed into a
school bus—a mode I only used when I had to transport a large number of
people. Smoke filled the cabin.

Somewhere behind me, a nasal voice said, “By all means, find the gates.”
I glanced in the rearview mirror. Through the smoke, I saw a portly man in a
mauve suit. He lounged across the backseat, where the troublemakers normally
sat. Hermes was fond of that seat—but this man was not Hermes.
He had a weak jawline, an overlarge nose, and a beard that wrapped around
his double chin like a helmet strap. His hair was curly and dark like mine, except
not as fashionably tousled or luxuriant. His lip curled as if he smelled something
unpleasant. Perhaps it was the burning seats of the bus.
“Who are you?” I yelled, desperately trying to pull the chariot out of its dive.
“Why are you on my bus?”
The man smiled, which made his face even uglier. “My own forefather does
not recognize me? I’m hurt!”
I tried to place him. My cursed mortal brain was too small, too inflexible. It
had jettisoned four thousand years of memories like so much ballast.
“I—I don’t,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
The man laughed as flames licked at his purple sleeves. “You’re not sorry
yet, but you will be. Find me the gates. Lead me to the Oracle. I’ll enjoy burning
it down!”
Fire consumed me as the sun chariot careened toward the earth. I gripped the
wheel and stared in horror as a massive bronze face loomed outside the
windshield. It was the face of the man in purple, fashioned from an expanse of
metal larger than my bus. As we hurtled toward it, the features shifted and
became my own.
Then I woke, shivering and sweating.
“Easy.” Someone’s hand rested on my shoulder. “Don’t try to sit up.”
Naturally I tried to sit up.
My bedside attendant was a young man about my age—my mortal age—
with shaggy blond hair and blue eyes. He wore doctor’s scrubs with an open ski
jacket, the words OKEMO MOUNTAIN stitched on the pocket. His face had a skier’s
tan. I felt I should know him. (I’d been having that sensation a lot since my fall
from Olympus.)
I was lying in a cot in the middle of a cabin. On either side, bunk beds lined

I was lying in a cot in the middle of a cabin. On either side, bunk beds lined
the walls. Rough cedar beams ribbed the ceiling. The white plaster walls were
bare except for a few hooks for coats and weapons.

It could have been a modest abode in almost any age—ancient Athens,
medieval France, the farmlands of Iowa. It smelled of clean linen and dried sage.
The only decorations were some flowerpots on the windowsill, where cheerful
yellow blooms were thriving despite the cold weather outside.

“Those flowers…” My voice was hoarse, as if I’d inhaled the smoke from
my dream. “Those are from Delos, my sacred island.”

“Yep,” said the young man. “They only grow in and around Cabin Seven
—your cabin. Do you know who I am?”

I studied his face. The calmness of his eyes, the smile resting easily on his
lips, the way his hair curled around his ears…I had a vague memory of a
woman, an alt-country singer named Naomi Solace, whom I’d met in Austin. I
blushed thinking about her even now. To my teenaged self, our romance felt like
something that I’d watched in a movie a long ago time—a movie my parents
wouldn’t have allowed me to see.

But this boy was definitely Naomi’s son.
Which meant he was my son too.
Which felt very, very strange.
“You’re Will Solace,” I said. “My, ah…erm—”
“Yeah,” Will agreed. “It’s awkward.”
My frontal lobe did a one-eighty inside my skull. I listed sideways.
“Whoa, there.” Will steadied me. “I tried to heal you, but honestly, I don’t
understand what’s wrong. You’ve got blood, not ichor. You’re recovering
quickly from your injuries, but your vital signs are completely human.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Yeah, well…” He put his hand on my forehead and frowned in
concentration. His fingers trembled slightly. “I didn’t know any of that until I
tried to give you nectar. Your lips started steaming. I almost killed you.”
“Ah…” I ran my tongue across my bottom lip, which felt heavy and numb. I
wondered if that explained my dream about smoke and fire. I hoped so. “I guess
Meg forgot to tell you about my condition.”
“I guess she did.” Will took my wrist and checked my pulse. “You seem to
be about my age, fifteen or so. Your heart rate is back to normal. Ribs are
mending. Nose is swollen, but not broken.”
“And I have acne,” I lamented. “And flab.”
Will tilted his head. “You’re mortal, and that’s what you’re worried about?”
“You’re right. I’m powerless. Weaker even than you puny demigods!”
“Gee, thanks….”

“Gee, thanks….”
I got the feeling that he almost said Dad but managed to stop himself.
It was difficult to think of this young man as my son. He was so poised, so
unassuming, so free of acne. He also didn’t appear to be awestruck in my
presence. In fact, the corner of his mouth had started twitching.
“Are—are you amused?” I demanded.
Will shrugged. “Well, it’s either find this funny or freak out. My dad, the god
Apollo, is a fifteen-year-old—”
“Sixteen,” I corrected. “Let’s go with sixteen.”
“A sixteen-year-old mortal, lying in a cot in my cabin, and with all my
healing arts—which I got from you—I still can’t figure out how to fix you.”
“There is no fixing this,” I said miserably. “I am cast out of Olympus. My
fate is tied to a girl named Meg. It could not be worse!”
Will laughed, which I thought took a great deal of gall. “Meg seems cool.
She’s already poked Connor Stoll in the eyes and kicked Sherman Yang in the
crotch.”
“She did what?”
“She’ll get along just fine here. She’s waiting for you outside—along with
most of the campers.” Will’s smile faded. “Just so you’re prepared, they’re
asking a lot of questions. Everybody is wondering if your arrival, your mortal
situation, has anything to do with what’s been going on at camp.”
I frowned. “What has been going on at camp?”
The cabin door opened. Two more demigods stepped inside. One was a tall
boy of about thirteen, his skin burnished bronze and his cornrows woven like
DNA helixes. In his black wool peacoat and black jeans, he looked as if he’d
stepped from the deck of an eighteenth-century whaling vessel. The other
newcomer was a younger girl in olive camouflage. She had a full quiver on her
shoulder, and her short ginger hair was dyed with a shock of bright green, which
seemed to defeat the point of wearing camouflage.
I smiled, delighted that I actually remembered their names.
“Austin,” I said. “And Kayla, isn’t it?”
Rather than falling to their knees and blubbering gratefully, they gave each
other a nervous glance.
“So it’s really you,” Kayla said.
Austin frowned. “Meg told us you were beaten up by a couple of thugs. She
said you had no powers and you went hysterical out in the woods.”
My mouth tasted like burnt school bus upholstery. “Meg talks too much.”
“But you’re mortal?” Kayla asked. “As in completely mortal? Does that
mean I’m going to lose my archery skills? I can’t even qualify for the Olympics
until I’m sixteen!”

until I’m sixteen!”
“And if I lose my music…” Austin shook his head. “No, man, that’s wrong.

My last video got, like, five hundred thousand views in a week. What am I
supposed to do?”

It warmed my heart that my children had the right priorities: their skills, their
images, their views on YouTube. Say what you will about gods being absentee
parents; our children inherit many of our finest personality traits.

“My problems should not affect you,” I promised. “If Zeus went around
retroactively yanking my divine power out of all my descendants, half the
medical schools in the country would be empty. The Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame would disappear. The Tarot-card reading industry would collapse
overnight!”

Austin’s shoulders relaxed. “That’s a relief.”
“So if you die while you’re mortal,” Kayla said, “we won’t disappear?”
“Guys,” Will interrupted, “why don’t you run to the Big House and tell
Chiron that our…our patient is conscious. I’ll bring him along in a minute. And,
uh, see if you can disperse the crowd outside, okay? I don’t want everybody
rushing Apollo at once.”
Kayla and Austin nodded sagely. As my children, they no doubt understood
the importance of controlling the paparazzi.
As soon as they were gone, Will gave me an apologetic smile. “They’re in
shock. We all are. It’ll take some time to get used to…whatever this is.”
“You do not seem shocked,” I said.
Will laughed under his breath. “I’m terrified. But one thing you learn as head
counselor: you have to keep it together for everyone else. Let’s get you on your
feet.”
It was not easy. I fell twice. My head spun, and my eyes felt as if they were
being microwaved in their sockets. Recent dreams continued to churn in my
brain like river silt, muddying my thoughts—the woman with the crown and the
peace symbol, the man in the purple suit. Lead me to the Oracle. I’ll enjoy
burning it down!
The cabin began to feel stifling. I was anxious to get some fresh air.
One thing my sister Artemis and I agree on: every worthwhile pursuit is
better outdoors than indoors. Music is best played under the dome of heaven.
Poetry should be shared in the agora. Archery is definitely easier outside, as I
can attest after that one time I tried target practice in my father’s throne room.
And driving the sun…well, that’s not really an indoor sport either.
Leaning on Will for support, I stepped outside. Kayla and Austin had
succeeded in shooing the crowd away. The only one waiting for me—oh, joy
and happiness—was my young overlord, Meg, who had apparently now gained

and happiness—was my young overlord, Meg, who had apparently now gained
fame at camp as Crotchkicker McCaffrey.

She still wore Sally Jackson’s hand-me-down green dress, though it was a bit
dirtier now. Her leggings were ripped and torn. On her bicep, a line of butterfly
bandages closed a nasty cut she must have gotten in the woods.

She took one look at me, scrunched up her face, and stuck out her tongue.
“You look yuck.”

“And you, Meg,” I said, “are as charming as ever.”
She adjusted her glasses until they were just crooked enough to be annoying.
“Thought you were going to die.”
“Glad to disappoint you.”
“Nah.” She shrugged. “You still owe me a year of service. We’re bound,
whether you like it or not!”
I sighed. It was ever so wonderful to be back in Meg’s company.
“I suppose I should thank you….” I had a hazy memory of my delirium in
the forest, Meg carrying me along, the trees seeming to part before us. “How did
you get us out of the woods?”
Her expression turned guarded. “Dunno. Luck.” She jabbed a thumb at Will
Solace. “From what he’s been telling me, it’s a good thing we got out before
nightfall.”
“Why?”
Will started to answer, then apparently thought better of it. “I should let
Chiron explain. Come on.”
I rarely visited Camp Half-Blood in winter. The last time had been three
years ago, when a girl named Thalia Grace crash-landed my bus in the canoe
lake.
I expected the camp to be sparsely populated. I knew most demigods only
came for the summer, leaving a small core of year-rounders during the school
term—those who for various reasons found camp the only safe place they could
live.
Still, I was struck by how few demigods I saw. If Cabin Seven was any
indication, each god’s cabin could hold beds for about twenty campers. That
meant a maximum capacity of four hundred demigods—enough for several
phalanxes or one really amazing yacht party.
Yet, as we walked across camp, I saw no more than a dozen people. In the
fading light of sunset, a lone girl was scaling the climbing wall as lava flowed
down either side. At the lake, a crew of three checked the rigging on the trireme.
Some campers had found reasons to be outside just so they could gawk at
me. Over by the hearth, one young man sat polishing his shield, watching me in
its reflective surface. Another fellow glared at me as he spliced barbed wire
outside the Ares cabin. From the awkward way he walked, I assumed he was

outside the Ares cabin. From the awkward way he walked, I assumed he was
Sherman Yang of the recently kicked crotch.

In the doorway of the Hermes cabin, two girls giggled and whispered as I
passed. Normally this sort of attention wouldn’t have fazed me. My magnetism
was understandably irresistible. But now my face burned. Me—the manly
paragon of romance—reduced to a gawky, inexperienced boy!

I would have screamed at the heavens for this unfairness, but that would’ve
been super-embarrassing.

We made our way through the fallow strawberry fields. Up on Half-Blood
Hill, the Golden Fleece glinted in the lowest branch of a tall pine tree. Whiffs of
steam rose from the head of Peleus, the guardian dragon coiled around the base
of the trunk. Next to the tree, the Athena Parthenos looked angry red in the
sunset. Or perhaps she just wasn’t happy to see me. (Athena had never gotten
over our little tiff during the Trojan War.)

Halfway down the hillside, I spotted the Oracle’s cave, its entrance shrouded
by thick burgundy curtains. The torches on either side stood unlit—usually a
sign that my prophetess, Rachel Dare, was not in residence. I wasn’t sure
whether to be disappointed or relieved.

Even when she was not channeling prophecies, Rachel was a wise young
lady. I had hoped to consult her about my problems. On the other hand, since her
prophetic power had apparently stopped working (which I suppose in some
small part was my fault), I wasn’t sure Rachel would want to see me. She would
expect explanations from her Main Man, and while I had invented mansplaining
and was its foremost practitioner, I had no answers to give her.

The dream of the flaming bus stayed with me: the groovy crowned woman
urging me to find the gates, the ugly mauve-suited man threatening to burn the
Oracle.

Well…the cave was right there. I wasn’t sure why the woman in the crown
was having such trouble finding it, or why the ugly man would be so intent on
burning its “gates,” which amounted to nothing more than purple curtains.

Unless the dream was referring to something other than the Oracle of
Delphi….

I rubbed my throbbing temples. I kept reaching for memories that weren’t
there, trying to plunge into my vast lake of knowledge only to find it had been
reduced to a kiddie pool. You simply can’t do much with a kiddie pool brain.

On the porch of the Big House, a dark-haired young man was waiting for us.
He wore faded black trousers, a Ramones T-shirt (bonus points for musical
taste), and a black leather bomber jacket. At his side hung a Stygian iron sword.

“I remember you,” I said. “Is it Nicholas, son of Hades?”
“Nico di Angelo.” He studied me, his eyes sharp and colorless, like broken

“Nico di Angelo.” He studied me, his eyes sharp and colorless, like broken
glass. “So it’s true. You’re completely mortal. There’s an aura of death around
you—a thick possibility of death.”

Meg snorted. “Sounds like a weather forecast.”
I did not find this amusing. Being face-to-face with a son of Hades, I recalled
the many mortals I had sent to the Underworld with my plague arrows. It had
always seemed like good clean fun—meting out richly deserved punishments for
wicked deeds. Now, I began to understand the terror in my victims’ eyes. I did
not want an aura of death hanging over me. I definitely did not want to stand in
judgment before Nico di Angelo’s father.
Will put his hand on Nico’s shoulder. “Nico, we need to have another talk
about your people skills.”
“Hey, I’m just stating the obvious. If this is Apollo, and he dies, we’re all in
trouble.”
Will turned to me. “I apologize for my boyfriend.”
Nico rolled his eyes. “Could you not—”
“Would you prefer special guy?” Will asked. “Or significant other?”
“Significant annoyance, in your case,” Nico grumbled.
“Oh, I’ll get you for that.”
Meg wiped her dripping nose. “You guys fight a lot. I thought we were going
to see a centaur.”
“And here I am.” The screen door opened. Chiron trotted out, ducking his
head to avoid the doorframe.
From the waist up, he looked every bit the professor he often pretended to be
in the mortal world. His brown wool jacket had patches on the elbows. His plaid
dress shirt did not quite match his green tie. His beard was neatly trimmed, but
his hair would have failed the tidiness inspection required for a proper rat’s nest.
From the waist down, he was a white stallion.
My old friend smiled, though his eyes were stormy and distracted. “Apollo,
it’s good you are here. We need to talk about the disappearances.”

Check your spam folder
The prophecies might be there
No? Well, I’m stumped. Bye

MEG GAWKED. “He—he really is a centaur.”
“Well spotted,” I said. “I suppose the lower body of a horse is what gave him

away?”
She punched me in the arm.
“Chiron,” I said, “this is Meg McCaffrey, my new master and wellspring of

aggravation. You were saying something about disappearances?”
Chiron’s tail flicked. His hooves clopped on the planks of the porch.
He was immortal, yet his visible age seemed to vary from century to century.

I did not remember his whiskers ever being so gray, or the lines around his eyes
so pronounced. Whatever was happening at camp must not have been helping
his stress levels.

“Welcome, Meg.” Chiron tried for a friendly tone, which I thought quite
heroic, seeing as…well, Meg. “I understand you showed great bravery in the
woods. You brought Apollo here despite many dangers. I’m glad to have you at
Camp Half-Blood.”

“Thanks,” said Meg. “You’re really tall. Don’t you hit your head on light
fixtures?”

Chiron chuckled. “Sometimes. If I want to be closer to human size, I have a
magical wheelchair that allows me to compact my lower half into…Actually,
that’s not important now.”

“Disappearances,” I prompted. “What has disappeared?”
“Not what, but who,” Chiron said. “Let’s talk inside. Will, Nico, could you
please tell the other campers we’ll gather for dinner in one hour? I’ll give
everyone an update then. In the meantime, no one should roam the camp alone.

Use the buddy system.”
“Understood.” Will looked at Nico. “Will you be my buddy?”
“You are a dork,” Nico announced.
The two of them strolled off bickering.
At this point, you may be wondering how I felt seeing my son with Nico di

Angelo. I’ll admit I did not understand Will’s attraction to a child of Hades, but
if the dark foreboding type was what made Will happy…

Oh. Perhaps some of you are wondering how I felt seeing him with a
boyfriend rather than a girlfriend. If that’s the case, please. We gods are not
hung up about such things. I myself have had…let’s see, thirty-three mortal
girlfriends and eleven mortal boyfriends? I’ve lost count. My two greatest loves
were, of course, Daphne and Hyacinthus, but when you’re a god as popular as I
am—

Hold on. Did I just tell you who I liked? I did, didn’t I? Gods of Olympus,
forget I mentioned their names! I am so embarrassed. Please don’t say anything.
In this mortal life, I’ve never been in love with anyone!

I am so confused.
Chiron led us into the living room, where comfy leather couches made a V
facing the stone fireplace. Above the mantel, a stuffed leopard head was snoring
contentedly.
“Is it alive?” Meg asked.
“Quite.” Chiron trotted over to his wheelchair. “That’s Seymour. If we speak
quietly, we should be able to avoid waking him.”
Meg immediately began exploring the living room. Knowing her, she was
searching for small objects to throw at the leopard to wake him up.
Chiron settled into his wheelchair. He placed his rear legs into the false
compartment of the seat, then backed up, magically compacting his equine
hindquarters until he looked like a man sitting down. To complete the illusion,
hinged front panels swung closed, giving him fake human legs. Normally those
legs were fitted with slacks and loafers to augment his “professor” disguise, but
today it seemed Chiron was going for a different look.
“That’s new,” I said.
Chiron glanced down at his shapely female mannequin legs, dressed in
fishnet stockings and red sequined high heels. He sighed heavily. “I see the
Hermes cabin have been watching Rocky Horror Picture Show again. I will have
to have a chat with them.”
Rocky Horror Picture Show brought back fond memories. I used to cosplay
as Rocky at the midnight showings, because, naturally, the character’s perfect
physique was based on my own.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Connor and Travis Stoll are the pranksters?”

“Let me guess,” I said. “Connor and Travis Stoll are the pranksters?”
From a nearby basket, Chiron grabbed a flannel blanket and spread it over
his fake legs, though the ruby shoes still peeked out at the bottom. “Actually,
Travis went off to college last autumn, which has mellowed Connor quite a bit.”
Meg looked over from the old Pac-Man arcade game. “I poked that guy
Connor in the eyes.”
Chiron winced. “That’s nice, dear….At any rate, we have Julia Feingold and
Alice Miyazawa now. They have taken up pranking duty. You’ll meet them soon
enough.”
I recalled the girls who had been giggling at me from the Hermes cabin
doorway. I felt myself blushing all over again.
Chiron gestured toward the couches. “Please sit.”
Meg moved on from Pac-Man (having given the game twenty seconds of her
time) and began literally climbing the wall. Dormant grapevines festooned the
dining area—no doubt the work of my old friend Dionysus. Meg scaled one of
the thicker trunks, trying to reach the Gorgon-hair chandelier.
“Ah, Meg,” I said, “perhaps you should watch the orientation film while
Chiron and I talk?”
“I know plenty,” she said. “I talked to the campers while you were passed
out. ‘Safe place for modern demigods.’ Blah, blah, blah.”
“Oh, but the film is very good,” I urged. “I shot it on a tight budget in the
1950s, but some of the camera work was revolutionary. You should really—”
The grapevine peeled away from the wall. Meg crashed to the floor. She
popped up completely unscathed, then spotted a platter of cookies on the
sideboard. “Are those free?”
“Yes, child,” Chiron said. “Bring the tea as well, would you?”
So we were stuck with Meg, who draped her legs over the couch’s armrest,
chomped on cookies, and threw crumbs at Seymour’s snoring head whenever
Chiron wasn’t looking.
Chiron poured me a cup of Darjeeling. “I’m sorry Mr. D is not here to
welcome you.”
“Mr. Dee?” Meg asked.
“Dionysus,” I explained. “The god of wine. Also the director of this camp.”
Chiron handed me my tea. “After the battle with Gaea, I thought Mr. D
might return to camp, but he never did. I hope he’s all right.”
The old centaur looked at me expectantly, but I had nothing to share. The last
six months were a complete void; I had no idea what the other Olympians might
be up to.
“I don’t know anything,” I admitted. I hadn’t said those words very often in
the last four millennia. They tasted bad. I sipped my tea, but that was no less

the last four millennia. They tasted bad. I sipped my tea, but that was no less
bitter. “I’m a bit behind on the news. I was hoping you could fill me in.”

Chiron did a poor job hiding his disappointment. “I see….”
I realized he had been hoping for help and guidance—the exact same things I
needed from him. As a god, I was used to lesser beings relying on me—praying
for this and pleading for that. But now that I was mortal, being relied upon was a
little terrifying.
“So what is your crisis?” I asked. “You have the same look Cassandra had in
Troy, or Jim Bowie at the Alamo—as if you’re under siege.”
Chiron did not dispute the comparison. He cupped his hands around his tea.
“You know that during the war with Gaea, the Oracle of Delphi stopped
receiving prophecies. In fact, all known methods of divining the future suddenly
failed.”
“Because the original cave of Delphi was retaken,” I said with a sigh, trying
not to feel picked on.
Meg bounced a chocolate chip off Seymour the leopard’s nose. “Oracle of
Delphi. Percy mentioned that.”
“Percy Jackson?” Chiron sat up. “Percy was with you?”
“For a time.” I recounted our battle in the peach orchard and Percy’s return
to New York. “He said he would drive out this weekend if he could.”
Chiron looked disheartened, as if my company alone wasn’t good enough.
Can you imagine?
“At any rate,” he continued, “we hoped that once the war was over, the
Oracle might start working again. When it did not…Rachel became concerned.”
“Who’s Rachel?” Meg asked.
“Rachel Dare,” I said. “The Oracle.”
“Thought the Oracle was a place.”
“It is.”
“Then Rachel is a place, and she stopped working?”
Had I still been a god, I would have turned her into a blue-belly lizard and
released her into the wilderness never to be seen again. The thought soothed me.
“The original Delphi was a place in Greece,” I told her. “A cavern filled with
volcanic fumes, where people would come to receive guidance from my
priestess, the Pythia.”
“Pythia.” Meg giggled. “That’s a funny word.”
“Yes. Ha-ha. So the Oracle is both a place and a person. When the Greek
gods relocated to America back in…what was it, Chiron, 1860?”
Chiron seesawed his hand. “More or less.”
“I brought the Oracle here to continue speaking prophecies on my behalf.
The power has passed down from priestess to priestess over the years. Rachel

The power has passed down from priestess to priestess over the years. Rachel
Dare is the present Oracle.”

From the cookie platter, Meg plucked the only Oreo, which I had been
hoping to have myself. “Mm-kay. Is it too late to watch that movie?”

“Yes,” I snapped. “Now, the way I gained possession of the Oracle of Delphi
in the first place was by killing this monster called Python who lived in the
depths of the cavern.”

“A python like the snake,” Meg said.
“Yes and no. The snake species is named after Python the monster, who is
also rather snaky, but who is much bigger and scarier and devours small girls
who talk too much. At any rate, last August, while I was…indisposed, my
ancient foe Python was released from Tartarus. He reclaimed the cave of Delphi.
That’s why the Oracle stopped working.”
“But if the Oracle is in America now, why does it matter if some snake
monster takes over its old cave?”
That was about the longest sentence I had yet heard her speak. She’d
probably done it just to spite me.
“It’s too much to explain,” I said. “You’ll just have to—”
“Meg.” Chiron gave her one of his heroically tolerant smiles. “The original
site of the Oracle is like the deepest taproot of a tree. The branches and leaves of
prophecy may extend across the world, and Rachel Dare may be our loftiest
branch, but if the taproot is strangled, the whole tree is endangered. With Python
back in residence at his old lair, the spirit of the Oracle has been completely
blocked.”
“Oh.” Meg made a face at me. “Why didn’t you just say so?”
Before I could strangle her like the annoying taproot she was, Chiron refilled
my teacup.
“The larger problem,” he said, “is that we have no other source of
prophecies.”
“Who cares?” Meg asked. “So you don’t know the future. Nobody knows the
future.”
“Who cares?!” I shouted. “Meg McCaffrey, prophecies are the catalysts for
every important event—every quest or battle, disaster or miracle, birth or death.
Prophecies don’t simply foretell the future. They shape it! They allow the future
to happen.”
“I don’t get it.”
Chiron cleared his throat. “Imagine prophecies are flower seeds. With the
right seeds, you can grow any garden you desire. Without seeds, no growth is
possible.”
“Oh.” Meg nodded. “That would suck.”

“Oh.” Meg nodded. “That would suck.”
I found it strange that Meg, a street urchin and Dumpster warrior, would
relate so well to garden metaphors, but Chiron was an excellent teacher. He had
picked up on something about the girl…an impression that had been lurking in
the back of my mind as well. I hoped I was wrong about what it meant, but with
my luck, I would be right. I usually was.
“So where is Rachel Dare?” I asked. “Perhaps if I spoke with her…?”
Chiron set down his tea. “Rachel planned to visit us during her winter
vacation, but she never did. It might not mean anything….”
I leaned forward. It was not unheard of for Rachel Dare to be late. She was
artistic, unpredictable, impulsive, and rule-averse—all qualities I dearly admired.
But it wasn’t like her not to show up at all.
“Or?” I asked.
“Or it might be part of the larger problem,” Chiron said. “Prophecies are not
the only things that have failed. Travel and communication have become
difficult in the last few months. We haven’t heard from our friends at Camp
Jupiter in weeks. No new demigods have arrived. Satyrs aren’t reporting from
the field. Iris messages no longer work.”
“Iris what?” Meg asked.
“Two-way visions,” I said. “A form of communication overseen by the
rainbow goddess. Iris has always been flighty….”
“Except that normal human communications are also on the fritz,” Chiron
said. “Of course, phones have always been dangerous for demigods—”
“Yeah, they attract monsters,” Meg agreed. “I haven’t used a phone in
forever.”
“A wise move,” Chiron said. “But recently our phones have stopped working
altogether. Mobile, landline, Internet…it doesn’t seem to matter. Even the
archaic form of communication known as e-mail is strangely unreliable. The
messages simply don’t arrive.”
“Did you look in the junk folder?” I offered.
“I fear the problem is more complicated,” Chiron said. “We have no
communication with the outside world. We are alone and understaffed. You are
the first newcomers in almost two months.”
I frowned. “Percy Jackson mentioned nothing of this.”
“I doubt Percy is even aware,” Chiron said. “He’s been busy with school.
Winter is normally our quietest time. For a while, I was able to convince myself
that the communication failures were nothing but an inconvenient happenstance.
Then the disappearances started.”
In the fireplace, a log slipped from the andiron. I may or may not have
jumped in my seat.

jumped in my seat.
“The disappearances, yes.” I wiped drops of tea from my pants and tried to

ignore Meg’s snickering. “Tell me about those.”
“Three in the last month,” Chiron said. “First it was Cecil Markowitz from

the Hermes cabin. One morning his bunk was simply empty. He didn’t say
anything about wanting to leave. No one saw him go. And in the past few weeks,
no one has seen or heard from him.”

“Children of Hermes do tend to sneak around,” I offered.
“At first, that’s what we thought,” said Chiron. “But a week later, Ellis
Wakefield disappeared from the Ares cabin. Same story: empty bunk, no signs
that he had either left on his own or was…ah, taken. Ellis was an impetuous
young man. It was conceivable he might have charged off on some ill-advised
adventure, but it made me uneasy. Then this morning we realized a third camper
had vanished: Miranda Gardiner, head of the Demeter cabin. That was the worst
news of all.”
Meg swung her feet off the armrest. “Why is that the worst?”
“Miranda is one of our senior counselors,” Chiron said. “She would never
leave on her own without notice. She is too smart to be tricked away from camp,
and too powerful to be forced. Yet something happened to her…something I
can’t explain.”
The old centaur faced me. “Something is very wrong, Apollo. These
problems may not be as alarming as the rise of Kronos or the awakening of
Gaea, but in a way I find them even more unsettling, because I have never seen
anything like this before.”
I recalled my dream of the burning sun bus. I thought of the voices I’d heard
in the woods, urging me to wander off and find their source.
“These demigods…” I said. “Before they disappeared, did they act unusual
in any way? Did they report…hearing things?”
Chiron raised an eyebrow. “Not that I am aware of. Why?”
I was reluctant to say more. I didn’t want to cause a panic without knowing
what we were facing. When mortals panic, it can be an ugly scene, especially if
they expect me to fix the problem.
Also, I will admit I felt a bit impatient. We had not yet addressed the most
important issues—mine.
“It seems to me,” I said, “that our first priority is to bend all the camp’s
resources to helping me regain my divine state. Then I can assist you with these
other problems.”
Chiron stroked his beard. “But what if the problems are connected, my
friend? What if the only way to restore you to Olympus is by reclaiming the
Oracle of Delphi, thus freeing the power of prophecy? What if Delphi is the key

Oracle of Delphi, thus freeing the power of prophecy? What if Delphi is the key
to it all?”

I had forgotten about Chiron’s tendency to lay out obvious and logical
conclusions that I tried to avoid thinking about. It was an infuriating habit.

“In my present state, that’s impossible.” I pointed at Meg. “Right now, my
job is to serve this demigod, probably for a year. After I’ve done whatever tasks
she assigns me, Zeus will judge that my sentence has been served, and I can
once again become a god.”

Meg pulled apart a Fig Newton. “I could order you to go to this Delphi
place.”

“No!” My voice cracked in midshriek. “You should assign me easy tasks—
like starting a rock band, or just hanging out. Yes, hanging out is good.”

Meg looked unconvinced. “Hanging out isn’t a task.”
“It is if you do it right. Camp Half-Blood can protect me while I hang out.
After my year of servitude is up, I’ll become a god. Then we can talk about how
to restore Delphi.”
Preferably, I thought, by ordering some demigods to undertake the quest for
me.
“Apollo,” Chiron said, “if demigods keep disappearing, we may not have a
year. We may not have the strength to protect you. And, forgive me, but Delphi
is your responsibility.”
I tossed up my hands. “I wasn’t the one who opened the Doors of Death and
let Python out! Blame Gaea! Blame Zeus for his bad judgment! When the giants
started to wake, I drew up a very clear Twenty-Point Plan of Action to Protect
Apollo and Also You Other Gods, but he didn’t even read it!”
Meg tossed half of her cookie at Seymour’s head. “I still think it’s your fault.
Hey, look! He’s awake!”
She said this as if the leopard had decided to wake up on his own rather than
being beaned in the eye with a Fig Newton.
“RARR,” Seymour complained.
Chiron wheeled his chair back from the table. “My dear, in that jar on the
mantel, you’ll find some Snausages. Why don’t you feed him dinner? Apollo
and I will wait on the porch.”
We left Meg happily making three-point shots into Seymour’s mouth with
the treats.
Once Chiron and I reached the porch, he turned his wheelchair to face me.
“She’s an interesting demigod.”
“Interesting is such a nonjudgmental term.”
“She really summoned a karpos?”
“Well…the spirit appeared when she was in trouble. Whether she

“Well…the spirit appeared when she was in trouble. Whether she
consciously summoned it, I don’t know. She named him Peaches.”

Chiron scratched his beard. “I have not seen a demigod with the power to
summon grain spirits in a very long time. You know what it means?”

My feet began to quake. “I have my suspicions. I’m trying to stay positive.”
“She guided you out of the woods,” Chiron noted. “Without her—”
“Yes,” I said. “Don’t remind me.”
It occurred to me that I’d seen that keen look in Chiron’s eyes before—when
he’d assessed Achilles’s sword technique and Ajax’s skill with a spear. It was
the look of a seasoned coach scouting new talent. I’d never dreamed the centaur
would look at me that way, as if I had something to prove to him, as if my mettle
were untested. I felt so…so objectified.
“Tell me,” Chiron said, “what did you hear in the woods?”
I silently cursed my big mouth. I should not have asked whether the missing
demigods had heard anything strange.
I decided it was fruitless to hold back now. Chiron was more perceptive than
your average horse-man. I told him what I’d experienced in the forest, and
afterward in my dream.
His hands curled into his lap blanket. The bottom of it rose higher above his
red sequined pumps. He looked about as worried as it is possible for a man to
look while wearing fishnet stockings.
“We will have to warn the campers to stay away from the forest,” he
decided. “I do not understand what is happening, but I still maintain it must be
connected to Delphi, and your present…ah, situation. The Oracle must be
liberated from the monster Python. We must find a way.”
I translated that easily enough: I must find a way.
Chiron must have read my desolate expression.
“Come, come, old friend,” he said. “You have done it before. Perhaps you
are not a god now, but the first time you killed Python it was no challenge at all!
Hundreds of storybooks have praised the way you easily slew your enemy.”
“Yes,” I muttered. “Hundreds of storybooks.”
I recalled some of those stories: I had killed Python without breaking a
sweat. I flew to the mouth of the cave, called him out, unleashed an arrow, and
BOOM!—one dead giant snake monster. I became Lord of Delphi, and we all
lived happily ever after.
How did storytellers get the idea that I vanquished Python so quickly?
All right…possibly it’s because I told them so. Still, the truth was rather
different. For centuries after our battle, I had bad dreams about my old foe.
Now I was almost grateful for my imperfect memory. I could not recollect all
of the nightmarish details of my fight with Python, but I did know he had been

no pushover. I had needed all my godly strength, my divine powers, and the
world’s most deadly bow.

What chance would I have as a sixteen-year-old mortal with acne, hand-me-
down clothes, and the nom de guerre Lester Papadopoulos? I was not going to
charge off to Greece and get myself killed, thank you very much, especially not
without my sun chariot or the ability to teleport. I’m sorry; gods do not fly
commercial.

I tried to figure out how to explain this to Chiron in a calm, diplomatic way
that did not involve stomping my feet or screaming. I was saved from the effort
by the sound of a conch horn in the distance.

“That means dinner.” The centaur forced a smile. “We will talk more later,
eh? For now, let’s celebrate your arrival.”

Ode to a hot dog
With bug juice and tater chips
I got nothing, man

I WAS NOT IN THE MOOD TO CELEBRATE.
Especially sitting at a picnic table eating mortal food. With mortals.
The dining pavilion was pleasant enough. Even in winter, the camp’s

magical borders shielded us from the worst of the elements. Sitting outdoors in
the warmth of the torches and braziers, I felt only slightly chilly. Long Island
Sound glittered in the light of the moon. (Hello, Artemis. Don’t bother to say hi.)
On Half-Blood Hill, the Athena Parthenos glowed like the world’s largest
nightlight. Even the woods did not seem so creepy with the pine trees blanketed
in soft silvery fog.

My dinner, however, was less than poetic. It consisted of hot dogs, potato
chips, and a red liquid I was told was bug juice. I did not know why humans
consumed bug juice, or from which type of bug it had been extracted, but it was
the tastiest part of the meal, which was disconcerting.

I sat at the Apollo table with my children Austin, Kayla, and Will, plus Nico
di Angelo. I could see no difference between my table and any of the other gods’
tables. Mine should have been shinier and more elegant. It should have played
music or recited poetry upon command. Instead it was just a slab of stone with
benches on either side. I found the seating uncomfortable, though my offspring
didn’t seem to mind.

Austin and Kayla peppered me with questions about Olympus, the war with
Gaea, and what it felt like to be a god and then a human. I knew they did not
mean to be rude. As my children, they were inherently inclined to the utmost
grace. However, their questions were painful reminders of my fallen status.

Besides, as the hours passed, I remembered less and less about my divine
life. It was alarming how fast my cosmically perfect neurons had deteriorated.

life. It was alarming how fast my cosmically perfect neurons had deteriorated.
Once, each memory had been like a high-definition audio file. Now those
recordings were on wax cylinders. And believe me, I remember wax cylinders.
They did not last long in the sun chariot.

Will and Nico sat shoulder to shoulder, bantering good-naturedly. They were
so cute together it made me feel desolate. It jogged my memories of those few
short golden months I’d shared with Hyacinthus before the jealousy, before the
horrible accident…

“Nico,” I said at last, “shouldn’t you be sitting at the Hades table?”
He shrugged. “Technically, yes. But if I sit alone at my table, strange things
happen. Cracks open in the floor. Zombies crawl out and start roaming around.
It’s a mood disorder. I can’t control it. That’s what I told Chiron.”
“And is it true?” I asked.
Nico smiled thinly. “I have a note from my doctor.”
Will raised his hand. “I’m his doctor.”
“Chiron decided it wasn’t worth arguing about,” Nico said. “As long as I sit
at a table with other people, like…oh, these guys for instance…the zombies stay
away. Everybody’s happier.”
Will nodded serenely. “It’s the strangest thing. Not that Nico would ever
misuse his powers to get what he wants.”
“Of course not,” Nico agreed.
I glanced across the dining pavilion. As per camp tradition, Meg had been
placed with the children of Hermes, since her godly parentage had not yet been
determined. Meg didn’t seem to mind. She was busy re-creating the Coney
Island Hot Dog Eating Contest all by herself. The other two girls, Julia and
Alice, watched her with a mixture of fascination and horror.
Across the table from her sat an older skinny boy with curly brown hair—
Connor Stoll, I deduced, though I’d never been able to tell him apart from his
older brother, Travis. Despite the darkness, Connor wore sunglasses, no doubt to
protect his eyes from a repeat poking. I also noted that he wisely kept his hands
away from Meg’s mouth.
In the entire pavilion, I counted nineteen campers. Most sat alone at their
respective tables—Sherman Yang for Ares; a girl I did not know for Aphrodite;
another girl for Demeter. At the Nike table, two dark-haired young ladies who
were obviously twins conversed over a war map. Chiron himself, again in full
centaur form, stood at the head table, sipping his bug juice as he chatted with
two satyrs, but their mood was subdued. The goat-men kept glancing at me, then
eating their silverware, as satyrs tend to do when nervous. Half a dozen gorgeous
dryads moved between the tables, offering food and drink, but I was so

preoccupied I couldn’t fully appreciate their beauty. Even more tragic: I felt too
embarrassed to flirt with them. What was wrong with me?

I studied the campers, hoping to spot some potential servants…I mean new
friends. Gods always like to keep a few strong veteran demigods handy to throw
into battle, send on dangerous quests, or pick the lint off our togas.
Unfortunately, no one at dinner jumped out at me as a likely minion. I longed for
a bigger pool of talent.

“Where are the…others?” I asked Will.
I wanted to say the A-List, but I thought that might be taken the wrong way.
Will took a bite of his pizza. “Were you looking for somebody in
particular?”
“What about the ones who went on that quest with the boat?”
Will and Nico exchanged a look that might have meant, Here we go. I
suppose they got asked a lot about the seven legendary demigods who had
fought side by side with the gods against Gaea’s giants. It pained me that I had
not gotten to see those heroes again. After any major battle, I liked to get a group
photo—along with exclusive rights to compose epic ballads about their exploits.
“Well,” Nico started, “you saw Percy. He and Annabeth are spending their
senior year in New York. Hazel and Frank are at Camp Jupiter doing the Twelfth
Legion thing.”
“Ah, yes.” I tried to bring up a clear mental picture of Camp Jupiter, the
Roman enclave near Berkeley, California, but the details were hazy. I could only
remember my conversations with Octavian, the way he’d turned my head with
his flattery and promises. That stupid boy…it was his fault I was here.
A voice whispered in the back of my mind. This time I thought it might be
my conscience: Who was the stupid boy? It wasn’t Octavian.
“Shut up,” I murmured.
“What?” Nico asked.
“Nothing. Continue.”
“Jason and Piper are spending the school year in Los Angeles with Piper’s
dad. They took Coach Hedge, Mellie, and Little Chuck with them.”
“Uh-huh.” I did not know those last three names, so I decided they probably
weren’t important. “And the seventh hero…Leo Valdez?”
Nico raised his eyebrows. “You remember his name?”
“Of course! He invented the Valdezinator. Oh, what a musical instrument! I
barely had time to master its major scales before Zeus zapped me at the
Parthenon. If anyone could help me, it would be Leo Valdez.”
Nico’s expression tightened with annoyance. “Well, Leo isn’t here. He died.
Then he came back to life. And if I see him again, I’ll kill him.”
Will elbowed him. “No, you won’t.” He turned to me. “During the fight with

Will elbowed him. “No, you won’t.” He turned to me. “During the fight with
Gaea, Leo and his bronze dragon, Festus, disappeared in a midair fiery
explosion.”

I shivered. After so many centuries driving the sun chariot, the term midair
fiery explosion did not sit well with me.

I tried to remember the last time I’d seen Leo Valdez on Delos, when he’d
traded the Valdezinator for information….

“He was looking for the physician’s cure,” I recalled, “the way to bring
someone back from the dead. I suppose he planned all along to sacrifice
himself?”

“Yep,” Will said. “He got rid of Gaea in the explosion, but we all assumed
he died too.”

“Because he did,” Nico said.
“Then, a few days later,” Will continued, “this scroll came fluttering into
camp on the wind….”
“I still have it.” Nico rummaged through the pockets of his bomber jacket. “I
look at it whenever I want to get angry.”
He produced a thick parchment scroll. As soon as he spread it on the table, a
flickering hologram appeared above the surface: Leo Valdez, looking impish as
usual with his dark wispy hair, his mischievous grin, and his diminutive stature.
(Of course, the hologram was only three inches tall, but even in real life Leo was
not much more imposing.) His jeans, blue work shirt, and tool belt were
speckled with machine oil.
“Hey, guys!” Leo spread his arms for a hug. “Sorry to leave you like that.
Bad news: I died. Good news: I got better! I had to go rescue Calypso. We’re
both fine now. We’re taking Festus to—” The image guttered like a flame in a
strong breeze, disrupting Leo’s voice. “Back as soon as—” Static. “Cook tacos
when—” More static. “¡Vaya con queso! Love ya!” The image winked out.
“That’s all we got,” Nico complained. “And that was in August. We have no
idea what he was planning, where he is now, or whether he’s still safe. Jason and
Piper spent most of September looking for him until Chiron finally insisted they
go start their school year.”
“Well,” I said, “it sounds like Leo was planning to cook tacos. Perhaps that
took longer than he anticipated. And vaya con queso…I believe he is
admonishing us to go with cheese, which is always sound advice.”
This did not seem to reassure Nico.
“I don’t like being in the dark,” he muttered.
An odd complaint for a child of Hades, but I understood what he meant. I,
too, was curious to know the fate of Leo Valdez. Once upon a time, I could have
divined his whereabouts as easily as you might check a Facebook timeline, but

divined his whereabouts as easily as you might check a Facebook timeline, but
now I could only stare at the sky and wonder when a small impish demigod
might appear with a bronze dragon and a plate of tacos.

And if Calypso was involved…that complicated things. The sorceress and I
had a rocky history, but even I had to admit she was beguiling. If she’d captured
Leo’s heart, it was entirely possible he had gotten sidetracked. Odysseus spent
seven years with her before returning home.

Whatever the case, it seemed unlikely that Valdez would be back in time to
help me. My quest to master the Valdezinator’s arpeggios would have to wait.

Kayla and Austin had been very quiet, following our conversation with
wonder and amazement. (My words have that effect on people.)

Now Kayla scooted toward me. “What did you guys talk about in the Big
House? Chiron told you about the disappearances…?”

“Yes.” I tried to avoid looking in the direction of the woods. “We discussed
the situation.”

“And?” Austin spread his fingers on the table. “What’s going on?”
I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want them to see my fear.
I wished my head would stop pounding. On Olympus, headaches were so
much easier to cure. Hephaestus simply split one’s skull open and extracted
whatever newborn god or goddess happened to be banging around in there. In
the mortal world, my options were more limited.
“I need time to think about it,” I said. “Perhaps in the morning I’ll have some
of my godly powers back.”
Austin leaned forward. In the torchlight, his cornrows seemed to twist into
new DNA patterns. “Is that how it works? Your strength comes back over time?”
“I—I think so.” I tried to remember my years of servitude with Admetus and
Laomedon, but I could barely conjure their names and faces. My contracting
memory terrified me. It made each moment of the present balloon in size and
importance, reminding me that time for mortals was limited.
“I have to get stronger,” I decided. “I must.”
Kayla squeezed my hand. Her archer’s fingers were rough and calloused.
“It’s okay, Apollo…Dad. We’ll help you.”
Austin nodded. “Kayla’s right. We’re in this together. If anybody gives you
trouble, Kayla will shoot them. Then I’ll curse them so bad they’ll be speaking
in rhyming couplets for weeks.”
My eyes watered. Not so long ago—like this morning, for instance—the idea
of these young demigods being able to help me would have struck me as
ridiculous. Now their kindness moved me more than a hundred sacrificial bulls. I
couldn’t recall the last time someone had cared about me enough to curse my
enemies with rhyming couplets.

enemies with rhyming couplets.
“Thank you,” I managed.
I could not add my children. It didn’t seem right. These demigods were my

protectors and my family, but for the present I could not think of myself as their
father. A father should do more—a father should give more to his children than
he takes. I have to admit that this was a novel idea for me. It made me feel even
worse than before.

“Hey…” Will patted my shoulder. “It’s not so bad. At least with everybody
being on high alert, we might not have to do Harley’s obstacle course
tomorrow.”

Kayla muttered an ancient Greek curse. If I had been a proper godly father, I
would have washed her mouth out with olive oil.

“I forgot all about that,” she said. “They’ll have to cancel it, won’t they?”
I frowned. “What obstacle course? Chiron mentioned nothing about this.”
I wanted to object that my entire day had been an obstacle course. Surely
they couldn’t expect me to do their camp activities as well. Before I could say as
much, one of the satyrs blew a conch horn at the head table.
Chiron raised his arms for attention.
“Campers!” His voice filled the pavilion. He could be quite impressive when
he wanted to be. “I have a few announcements, including news about
tomorrow’s three-legged death race!”

Three-legged death race
Five terrible syllables
Oh, gods. Please not Meg

IT WAS ALL HARLEY’S FAULT.
After addressing the disappearance of Miranda Gardiner—“As a

precautionary measure, please stay away from the woods until we know
more”—Chiron called forward the young son of Hephaestus to explain how the
three-legged death race would work. It quickly became apparent that Harley had
masterminded the whole project. And, really, the idea was so horrifying, it could
only have sprung from the mind of an eight-year-old boy.

I confess I lost track of the specifics after he explained the exploding chain-
saw Frisbees.

“And they’ll be like, ZOOM!” He bounced up and down with excitement.
“And then BUZZ! And POW!” He pantomimed all sorts of chaos with his hands.
“You have to be really quick or you’ll die, and it’s awesome!”

The other campers grumbled and shifted on their benches.
Chiron raised his hand for silence. “Now, I know there were problems last
time,” he said, “but fortunately our healers in the Apollo cabin were able to
reattach Paolo’s arms.”
At a table in back, a muscular teen boy rose and began ranting in what I
thought was Portuguese. He wore a white tank top over his dark chest, and I
could see faint white scars around the tops of his biceps. Cursing rapidly, he
pointed at Harley, the Apollo cabin, and pretty much everyone else.
“Ah, thank you, Paolo,” Chiron said, clearly baffled. “I’m glad you are
feeling better.”
Austin leaned toward me and whispered, “Paolo understands English okay,
but he only speaks Portuguese. At least, that’s what he claims. None of us can
understand a word he says.”

understand a word he says.”
I didn’t understand Portuguese either. Athena had been lecturing us for years

about how Mount Olympus might migrate to Brazil someday, and we should all
be prepared for the possibility. She’d even bought the gods Berlitz Portuguese
DVDs for Saturnalia presents, but what does Athena know?

“Paolo seems agitated,” I noted.
Will shrugged. “He’s lucky he’s a fast healer—son of Hebe, goddess of
youth, and all that.”
“You’re staring,” Nico noted.
“I am not,” Will said. “I am merely assessing how well Paolo’s arms are
functioning after surgery.”
“Hmph.”
Paolo finally sat down. Chiron went through a long list of other injuries they
had experienced during the first three-legged death race, all of which he hoped to
avoid this time: second-degree burns, burst eardrums, a pulled groin, and two
cases of chronic Irish step dancing.
The lone demigod at the Athena table raised his hand. “Chiron, just going to
throw this out there….We’ve had three campers disappear. Is it really wise to be
running a dangerous obstacle course?”
Chiron gave him a pained smile. “An excellent question, Malcolm, but this
course will not take you into the woods, which we believe is the most hazardous
area. The satyrs, dryads, and I will continue to investigate the disappearances.
We will not rest until our missing campers are found. In the meantime, however,
this three-legged race can foster important team-building skills. It also expands
our understanding of the Labyrinth.”
The word smacked me in the face like Ares’s body odor. I turned to Austin.
“The Labyrinth? As in Daedalus’s Labyrinth?”
Austin nodded, his fingers worrying the ceramic camp beads around his
neck. I had a sudden memory of his mother, Latricia—the way she used to fiddle
with her cowry necklace when she lectured at Oberlin. Even I learned things
from Latricia Lake’s music theory class, though I had found her distractingly
beautiful.
“During the war with Gaea,” Austin said, “the maze reopened. We’ve been
trying to map it ever since.”
“That’s impossible,” I said. “Also insane. The Labyrinth is a malevolent
sentient creation! It can’t be mapped or trusted.”
As usual, I could only draw on random bits and pieces of my memories, but I
was fairly certain I spoke the truth. I remembered Daedalus. Back in the old
days, the king of Crete had ordered him to build a maze to contain the monstrous

Minotaur. But, oh no, a simple maze wasn’t good enough for a brilliant inventor
like Daedalus. He had to make his Labyrinth self-aware and self-expanding.
Over the centuries, it had honeycombed under the planet’s surface like an
invasive root system.

Stupid brilliant inventors.
“It’s different now,” Austin told me. “Since Daedalus died…I don’t know.
It’s hard to describe. Doesn’t feel so evil. Not quite as deadly.”
“Oh, that’s hugely reassuring. So of course you decided to do three-legged
races through it.”
Will coughed. “The other thing, Dad…Nobody wants to disappoint Harley.”
I glanced at the head table. Chiron was still holding forth about the virtues of
team building while Harley bounced up and down. I could see why the other
campers might adopt the boy as their unofficial mascot. He was a cute little
pipsqueak, even if he was scarily buff for an eight-year-old. His grin was
infectious. His enthusiasm seemed to lift the mood of the entire group. Still, I
recognized the mad gleam in his eyes. It was the same look his father,
Hephaestus, got whenever he invented some automaton that would later go
berserk and start destroying cities.
“Also keep in mind,” Chiron was saying, “that none of the unfortunate
disappearances has been linked to the Labyrinth. Remain with your partner and
you should be safe…at least, as safe as one can be in a three-legged death race.”
“Yeah,” Harley said. “Nobody has even died yet.” He sounded disappointed,
as if he wanted us to try harder.
“In the face of a crisis,” Chiron said, “it’s important to stick to our regular
activities. We must stay alert and in top condition. Our missing campers would
expect no less from us. Now, as to the teams for the race, you will be allowed to
choose your partner—”
There followed a sort of piranha attack of campers lunging toward each other
to grab their preferred teammate. Before I could contemplate my options, Meg
McCaffrey pointed at me from across the pavilion, her expression exactly like
Uncle Sam’s in the recruitment poster.
Of course, I thought. Why should my luck improve now?
Chiron struck his hoof against the floor. “All right, everyone, settle down!
The race will be tomorrow afternoon. Thank you, Harley, for your hard work on
the…um, various lethal surprises in store.”
“BLAM!” Harley ran back to the Hephaestus table to join his older sister,
Nyssa.
“This brings us to our other news,” Chiron said. “As you may have heard,
two special newcomers joined us today. First, please welcome the god Apollo!”
Normally this was my cue to stand up, spread my arms, and grin as radiant

Normally this was my cue to stand up, spread my arms, and grin as radiant
light shone around me. The adoring crowd would applaud and toss flowers and
chocolate bonbons at my feet.

This time I received no applause—just nervous looks. I had a strange,
uncharacteristic impulse to slide lower in my seat and pull my coat over my
head. I restrained myself through heroic effort.

Chiron struggled to maintain his smile. “Now, I know this is unusual,” he
said, “but gods do become mortal from time to time. You should not be overly
alarmed. Apollo’s presence among us could be a good omen, a chance for us
to…” He seemed to lose track of his own argument. “Ah…do something good.
I’m sure the best course of action will become clear in time. For now, please
make Apollo feel at home. Treat him as you would any other new camper.”

At the Hermes table, Connor Stoll raised his hand. “Does that mean the Ares
cabin should stick Apollo’s head in a toilet?”

At the Ares table, Sherman Yang snorted. “We don’t do that to everyone,
Connor. Just the newbies who deserve it.”

Sherman glanced at Meg, who was obliviously finishing her last hot dog.
The wispy black whiskers at the sides of her mouth were now frosted with
mustard.

Connor Stoll grinned back at Sherman—a conspiratorial look if ever I saw
one. That’s when I noticed the open backpack at Connor’s feet. Peeking from the
top was something that looked like a net.

The implication sank in: two boys whom Meg had humiliated, preparing for
payback. I didn’t have to be Nemesis to understand the allure of revenge. Still…
I felt an odd desire to warn Meg.

I tried to catch her eye, but she remained focused on her dinner.
“Thank you, Sherman,” Chiron continued. “It’s good to know you won’t be
giving the god of archery a swirly. As for the rest of you, we will keep you
posted on our guest’s situation. I’m sending two of our finest satyrs, Millard and
Herbert”—he gestured to the satyrs on his left—“to hand-deliver a message to
Rachel Dare in New York. With any luck, she will be able to join us soon and
help determine how we can best assist Apollo.”
There was some grumbling about this. I caught the words Oracle and
prophecies. At a nearby table, a girl muttered to herself in Italian: The blind
leading the blind.
I glared at her, but the young lady was quite beautiful. She was perhaps two
years older than I (mortally speaking), with dark pixie hair and devastatingly
fierce almond eyes. I may have blushed.
I turned back to my tablemates. “Um…yes, satyrs. Why not send that other
satyr, the friend of Percy’s?”

satyr, the friend of Percy’s?”
“Grover?” Nico asked. “He’s in California. The whole Council of Cloven

Elders is out there, meeting about the drought.”
“Oh.” My spirits fell. I remembered Grover as being quite resourceful, but if

he was dealing with California’s natural disasters, he was unlikely to be back
anytime in the next decade.

“Finally,” Chiron said, “we welcome a new demigod to camp—Meg
McCaffrey!”

She wiped her mouth and stood.
Next to her, Alice Miyazawa said, “Stand up, Meg.”
Julia Feingold laughed.
At the Ares table, Sherman Yang rose. “Now this one—this one deserves a
special welcome. What do you think, Connor?”
Connor reached into his backpack. “I think maybe the canoe lake.”
I started to say, “Meg—”
Then all Hades broke loose.
Sherman Yang strode toward Meg. Connor Stoll pulled out a golden net and
threw it over her head. Meg yelped and tried to squirm free, while some of the
campers chanted, “Dunk—her! Dunk—her!” Chiron did his best to shout them
down: “Now, demigods, wait a moment!”
A guttural howl interrupted the proceedings. From the top of the colonnade,
a blur of chubby flesh, leafy wings, and linen diaper hurtled downward and
landed on Sherman Yang’s back, knocking him face-first into the stone floor.
Peaches the karpos stood and wailed, beating his chest. His eyes glowed green
with anger. He launched himself at Connor Stoll, locked his plump legs around
the demigod’s neck, and began pulling out Connor’s hair with his claws.
“Get it off!” Connor wailed, thrashing blindly around the pavilion. “Get it
off!”
Slowly the other demigods overcame their shock. Several drew swords.
“C’è un karpos!” yelled the Italian girl.
“Kill it!” said Alice Miyazawa.
“No!” I cried.
Normally such a command from me would’ve initiated a prison lockdown
situation, with all the mortals dropping to their bellies to await my further orders.
Alas, now I was a mere mortal with a squeaky adolescent voice.
I watched in horror as my own daughter Kayla nocked an arrow in her bow.
“Peaches, get off him!” Meg screamed. She untangled herself from the net,
threw it down, then ran toward Connor.
The karpos hopped off Connor’s neck. He landed at Meg’s feet, baring his
fangs and hissing at the other campers who had formed a loose semicircle with

fangs and hissing at the other campers who had formed a loose semicircle with
weapons drawn.

“Meg, get out of the way,” said Nico di Angelo. “That thing is dangerous.”
“No!” Meg’s voice was shrill. “Don’t kill him!”
Sherman Yang rolled over, groaning. His face looked worse than it probably
was—a gash on the forehead can produce a shocking amount of blood—but the
sight steeled the resolve of the other campers. Kayla drew her bow. Julia
Feingold unsheathed a dagger.
“Wait!” I pleaded.
What happened next, a lesser mind could never have processed.
Julia charged. Kayla shot her arrow.
Meg thrust out her hands and faint gold light flashed between her fingers.
Suddenly young McCaffrey was holding two swords—each a curved blade in
the old Thracian style, siccae made from Imperial gold. I had not seen such
weapons since the fall of the Rome. They seemed to have appeared from
nowhere, but my long experience with magic items told me they must have been
summoned from the crescent rings Meg always wore.
Both her blades whirled. Meg simultaneously sliced Kayla’s arrow out of the
air and disarmed Julia, sending her dagger skittering across the floor.
“What the Hades?” Connor demanded. His hair had been pulled out in
chunks so he looked like an abused doll. “Who is this kid?”
Peaches crouched at Meg’s side, snarling, as Meg fended off the confused
and enraged demigods with her two swords.
My vision must have been better than the average mortal’s, because I saw the
glowing sign first—a light shining above Meg’s head.
When I recognized the symbol, my heart turned to lead. I hated what I saw,
but I thought I should point it out. “Look.”
The others seemed confused. Then the glow became brighter: a holographic
golden sickle with a few sheaves of wheat, rotating just above Meg McCaffrey.
A boy in the crowd gasped. “She’s a communist!”
A girl who’d been sitting at Cabin Four’s table gave him a disgusted sneer.
“No, Damien, that’s my mom’s symbol.” Her face went slack as the truth sank
in. “Uh, which means…it’s her mom’s symbol.”
My head spun. I did not want this knowledge. I did not want to serve a
demigod with Meg’s parentage. But now I understood the crescents on Meg’s
rings. They were not moons; they were sickle blades. As the only Olympian
present, I felt I should make her title official.
“My friend is no longer unclaimed,” I announced.
The other demigods knelt in respect, some more reluctantly than others.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said, my voice as bitter as Chiron’s tea, “please

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said, my voice as bitter as Chiron’s tea, “please
give it up for Meg McCaffrey, daughter of Demeter.”

You’ve got to be kid—
Well, crud, what just happened there?
I ran out of syl—

NO ONE KNEW WHAT TO MAKE OF MEG.
I couldn’t blame them.
The girl made even less sense to me now that I knew who her mother was.
I’d had my suspicions, yes, but I’d hoped to be proven wrong. Being right so

much of the time was a terrible burden.
Why would I dread a child of Demeter?
Good question.
Over the past day, I had been doing my best to piece together my

remembrances of the goddess. Once Demeter had been my favorite aunt. That
first generation of gods could be a stuffy bunch (I’m looking at you, Hera,
Hades, Dad), but Demeter had always been a kind and loving presence—except
when she was destroying mankind through pestilence and famine, but everyone
has their bad days.

Then I made the mistake of dating one of her daughters. I think her name
was Chrysothemis, but you’ll have to excuse me if I’m wrong. Even when I was
a god, I had trouble remembering the names of all my exes. The young woman
sang a harvest song at one of my Delphic festivals. Her voice was so beautiful, I
fell in love. True, I fell in love with each year’s winner and the runners-up, but
what can I say? I’m a sucker for a melodious voice.

Demeter did not approve. Ever since her daughter Persephone was
kidnapped by Hades, she’d been a little touchy about her children dating gods.

At any rate, she and I had words. We reduced a few mountains to rubble. We
laid waste to a few city-states. You know how family arguments can get. Finally
we settled into an uneasy truce, but ever since then I’d made a point to steer
clear of Demeter’s children.

clear of Demeter’s children.
Now here I was—a servant to Meg McCaffrey, the most ragamuffin daughter

of Demeter ever to swing a sickle.
I wondered who Meg’s father had been to attract the attention of the goddess.

Demeter rarely fell in love with mortals. Meg was unusually powerful, too. Most
children of Demeter could do little more than make crops grow and keep
bacterial fungi at bay. Dual-wielding golden blades and summoning karpoi—that
was top-shelf stuff.

All of this went through my mind as Chiron dispersed the crowd, urging
everyone to put away their weapons. Since head counselor Miranda Gardiner
was missing, Chiron asked Billie Ng, the only other camper from Demeter, to
escort Meg to Cabin Four. The two girls made a quick retreat, Peaches bouncing
along excitedly behind them. Meg shot me a worried look.

Not sure what else to do, I gave her two thumbs-up. “See you tomorrow!”
She seemed less than encouraged as she disappeared in the darkness.
Will Solace tended to Sherman Yang’s head injuries. Kayla and Austin stood
over Connor, debating the need for a hair graft. This left me alone to make my
way back to the Me cabin.
I lay on my sick cot in the middle of the room and stared at the ceiling
beams. I thought again about what a depressingly simple, utterly mortal place
this was. How did my children stand it? Why did they not keep a blazing altar,
and decorate the walls with hammered gold reliefs celebrating my glory?
When I heard Will and the others coming back, I closed my eyes and
pretended to be asleep. I could not face their questions or kindnesses, their
attempts to make me feel at home when I clearly did not belong.
As they came in the door, they got quiet.
“Is he okay?” whispered Kayla.
Austin said, “Would you be, if you were him?”
A moment of silence.
“Try to get some sleep, guys,” Will advised.
“This is crazy weird,” Kayla said. “He looks so…human.”
“We’ll watch out for him,” Austin said. “We’re all he’s got now.”
I held back a sob. I couldn’t bear their concern. Not being able to reassure
them, or even disagree with them, made me feel very small.
A blanket was draped over me.
Will said, “Sleep well, Apollo.”
Perhaps it was his persuasive voice, or the fact that I was more exhausted
than I had been in centuries. Immediately, I drifted into unconsciousness.

Thank the remaining eleven Olympians, I had no dreams.
I woke in the morning feeling strangely refreshed. My chest no longer hurt.

My nose no longer felt like a water balloon attached to my face. With the help of
my offspring (cabin mates—I will call them cabin mates), I managed to master
the arcane mysteries of the shower, the toilet, and the sink. The toothbrush was a
shock. The last time I was mortal, there had been no such thing. And underarm
deodorant—what a ghastly idea that I should need enchanted salve to keep my
armpits from producing stench!

When I was done with my morning ablutions and dressed in clean clothes
from the camp store—sneakers, jeans, an orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt, and a
comfy winter coat of flannel wool—I felt almost optimistic. Perhaps I could
survive this human experience.

I perked up even more when I discovered bacon.
Oh, gods—bacon! I promised myself that once I achieved immortality again,
I would assemble the Nine Muses and together we would create an ode, a
hymnal to the power of bacon, which would move the heavens to tears and cause
rapture across the universe.
Bacon is good.
Yes—that may be the title of the song: “Bacon Is Good.”
Seating for breakfast was less formal than dinner. We filled our trays at a
buffet line and were allowed to sit wherever we wished. I found this delightful.
(Oh, what a sad commentary on my new mortal mind that I, who once dictated
the course of nations, should get excited about open seating.) I took my tray and
found Meg, who was sitting by herself on the edge of the pavilion’s retaining
wall, dangling her feet over the side and watching the waves at the beach.
“How are you?” I asked.
Meg nibbled on a waffle. “Yeah. Great.”
“You are a powerful demigod, daughter of Demeter.”
“Mm-hm.”
If I could trust my understanding of human responses, Meg did not seem
thrilled.
“Your cabin mate, Billie…Is she nice?”
“Sure. All good.”
“And Peaches?”
She looked at me sideways. “Disappeared overnight. Guess he only shows
up when I’m in danger.”
“Well, that’s an appropriate time for him to show up.”
“Ap-pro-pri-ate.” Meg touched a waffle square for each syllable. “Sherman
Yang had to get seven stitches.”
I glanced over at Sherman, who sat at a safe distance across the pavilion,

I glanced over at Sherman, who sat at a safe distance across the pavilion,
glaring daggers at Meg. A nasty red zigzag ran down the side of his face.

“I wouldn’t worry,” I told Meg. “Ares’s children like scars. Besides,
Sherman wears the Frankenstein look rather well.”

The corner of her mouth twitched, but her gaze remained far away. “Our
cabin has a grass floor—like, green grass. There’s a huge oak tree in the middle,
holding up the ceiling.”

“Is that bad?”
“I have allergies.”
“Ah…” I tried to imagine the tree in her cabin. Once upon a time, Demeter
had had a sacred grove of oaks. I remembered she’d gotten quite angry when a
mortal prince tried to cut it down.
A sacred grove…
Suddenly the bacon in my stomach expanded, wrapping around my organs.
Meg gripped my arm. Her voice was a distant buzz. I only heard the last,
most important word: “—Apollo?”
I stirred. “What?”
“You blanked out.” She scowled. “I said your name six times.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Where did you go?”
I could not explain. I felt as if I’d been standing on the deck of a ship when
an enormous, dark, and dangerous shape passed beneath the hull—a shape
almost discernible, then simply gone.
“I—I don’t know. Something about trees….”
“Trees,” Meg said.
“It’s probably nothing.”
It wasn’t nothing. I couldn’t shake the image from my dreams: the crowned
woman urging me to find the gates. That woman wasn’t Demeter—at least, I
didn’t think so. But the idea of sacred trees stirred a memory within me…
something very old, even by my standards.
I didn’t want to talk about this with Meg, not until I’d had time to reflect.
She had enough to worry about. Besides, after last night, my new young master
made me more apprehensive than ever.
I glanced at the rings on her middle fingers. “So yesterday…those swords.
And don’t do that thing.”
Meg’s eyebrows furrowed. “What thing?”
“That thing where you shut down and refuse to talk. Your face turns to
cement.”
She gave me a furious pout. “It does not. I’ve got swords. I fight with them.
So what?”

So what?”
“So it might have been nice to know that earlier, when we were in combat

with plague spirits.”
“You said it yourself: those spirits couldn’t be killed.”
“You’re sidestepping.” I knew this because it was a tactic I had mastered

centuries ago. “The style you fight in, with two curved blades, is the style of a
dimachaerus, a gladiator from the late Roman Empire. Even back then, it was
rare—possibly the most difficult fighting style to master, and one of the most
deadly.”

Meg shrugged. It was an eloquent shrug, but it did not offer much in the way
of explanation.

“Your swords are Imperial gold,” I said. “That would indicate Roman
training, and mark you as a good prospect for Camp Jupiter. Yet your mother is
Demeter, the goddess in her Greek form, not Ceres.”

“How do you know?”
“Aside from the fact that I was a god? Demeter claimed you here at Camp
Half-Blood. That was no accident. Also, her older Greek form is much more
powerful. You, Meg, are powerful.”
Her expression turned so guarded I expected Peaches to hurtle from the sky
and start pulling out chunks of my hair.
“I never met my mom,” she said. “I didn’t know who she was.”
“Then where did you get the swords? Your father?”
Meg tore her waffle into tiny pieces. “No….My stepdad raised me. He gave
me these rings.”
“Your stepfather. Your stepfather gave you rings that turn into Imperial
golden swords. What sort of man—”
“A good man,” she snapped.
I noted the steel in Meg’s voice and let the subject rest. I sensed a great
tragedy in her past. Also, I feared that if I pressed my questions, I might find
those golden blades at my neck.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Mm-hm.” Meg tossed a piece of waffle into the air. Out of nowhere, one of
the camp’s cleaning harpies swooped down like a two-hundred-pound kamikaze
chicken, snatched up the food, and flew away.
Meg continued as if nothing had happened. “Let’s just get through today.
We’ve got the race after lunch.”
A shiver ran down my neck. The last thing I wanted was to be strapped to
Meg McCaffrey in the Labyrinth, but I managed to avoid screaming.
“Don’t worry about the race,” I said. “I have a plan for how to win it.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“Or rather, I will have a plan by this afternoon. All I need is a little time—”
Behind us, the conch horn blew.
“Morning boot camp!” Sherman Yang bellowed. “Let’s go, you special
snowflakes! I want you all in tears by lunchtime!”

Practice makes perfect
Ha, ha, ha, I don’t think so
Ignore my sobbing

I WISHED I HAD A DOCTOR’S NOTE. I wanted to be excused from PE.
Honestly, I will never understand you mortals. You try to maintain good

physical shape with push-ups, sit-ups, five-mile runs, obstacle courses, and other
hard work that involves sweating. All the while, you know it is a losing battle.
Eventually your weak, limited-use bodies will deteriorate and fail, giving you
wrinkles, sagging parts, and old-person breath.

It’s horrific! If I want to change shape, or age, or gender, or species, I simply
wish it to happen and—ka-bam!—I am a young, large, female three-toed sloth.
No amount of push-ups will accomplish that. I simply don’t see the logic in your
constant struggles. Exercise is nothing more than a depressing reminder that one
is not a god.

By the end of Sherman Yang’s boot camp, I was gasping and drenched in
sweat. My muscles felt like quivering columns of gelatinous dessert.

I did not feel like a special snowflake (though my mother, Leto, always
assured me I was one), and I was sorely tempted to accuse Sherman of not
treating me as such.

I grumbled about this to Will. I asked where the old head counselor of Ares
had gone. Clarisse La Rue I could at least charm with my dazzling smile. Alas,
Will reported she was attending the University of Arizona. Oh, why does college
have to happen to perfectly good people?

After the torture, I staggered back to my cabin and took another shower.
Showers are good. Perhaps not as good as bacon, but good.
My second morning session was painful for a different reason. I was
assigned to music lessons in the amphitheater with a satyr named Woodrow.

Woodrow seemed nervous to have me join his little class. Perhaps he had
heard the legend about my skinning the satyr Marsyas alive after he challenged
me to a music contest. (As I said, the flaying part was totally untrue, but rumors
do have amazing staying power, especially when I may have been guilty of
spreading them.)

Using his panpipe, Woodrow reviewed the minor scales. Austin had no
problem with these, even though he was challenging himself by playing the
violin, which was not his instrument. Valentina Diaz, a daughter of Aphrodite,
did her best to throttle a clarinet, producing sounds like a basset hound
whimpering in a thunderstorm. Damien White, son of Nemesis, lived up to his
namesake by wreaking vengeance on an acoustic guitar. He played with such
force that he broke the D string.

“You killed it!” said Chiara Benvenuti. She was the pretty Italian girl I’d
noticed the night before—a child of Tyche, goddess of good fortune. “I needed
to use that guitar!”

“Shut up, Lucky,” Damien muttered. “In the real world, accidents happen.
Strings snap sometimes.”

Chiara unleashed some rapid-fire Italian that I decided not to translate.
“May I?” I reached for the guitar.
Damien reluctantly handed it over. I leaned toward the guitar case by
Woodrow’s feet. The satyr leaped several inches into the air.
Austin laughed. “Relax, Woodrow. He’s just getting another string.”
I’ll admit I found the satyr’s reaction gratifying. If I could still scare satyrs,
perhaps there was hope for me reclaiming some of my former glory. From here I
could work my way up to scaring farm animals, then demigods, monsters, and
minor deities.
In a matter of seconds, I had replaced the string. It felt good to do something
so familiar and simple. I adjusted the pitch, but stopped when I realized
Valentina was sobbing.
“That was so beautiful!” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “What was that
song?”
I blinked. “It’s called tuning.”
“Yeah, Valentina, control yourself,” Damien chided, though his eyes were
red. “It wasn’t that beautiful.”
“No.” Chiara sniffled. “It wasn’t.”
Only Austin seemed unaffected. His eyes shone with what looked like pride,
though I didn’t understand why he would feel that way.
I played a C minor scale. The B string was flat. It’s always the B string.
Three thousand years since I invented the guitar (during a wild party with the

Hittites—long story), and I still couldn’t figure out how to make a B string that
stays in tune.

I ran through the other scales, delighted that I still remembered them.
“Now this is a Lydian progression,” I said. “It starts on the fourth of the
major scale. They say it’s called Lydian after the old kingdom of Lydia, but
actually, I named it for an old girlfriend of mine, Lydia. She was the fourth
woman I dated that year, so…”
I looked up mid-arpeggio. Damien and Chiara were weeping in each other’s
arms, hitting each other weakly and cursing, “I hate you. I hate you.”
Valentina lay on the amphitheater bench, silently shaking. Woodrow was
pulling apart his panpipes.
“I’m worthless!” he sobbed. “Worthless!”
Even Austin had a tear in his eye. He gave me a thumbs-up.
I was thrilled that some of my old skill remained intact, but I imagined
Chiron would be annoyed if I drove the entire music class into major depression.
I pulled the D string slightly sharp—a trick I used to use to keep my adoring
fans from exploding in rapture at my concerts. (And I mean literally exploding.
Some of those gigs at the Fillmore in the 1960s…well, I’ll spare you the
gruesome details.)
I strummed a chord that was intentionally out of tune. To me it sounded
awful, but the campers stirred from their misery. They sat up, wiped their tears,
and watched in fascination as I played a simple one-four-five progression.
“Yeah, man.” Austin brought his violin to his chin and began to improvise.
His resin bow danced across the strings. He and I locked eyes, and for a moment
we were more than family. We became part of the music, communicating on a
level only gods and musicians will ever understand.
Woodrow broke the spell.
“That’s amazing,” the satyr sobbed. “You two should be teaching the class.
What was I thinking? Please don’t flay me!”
“My dear satyr,” I said, “I would never—”
Suddenly, my fingers spasmed. I dropped the guitar in surprise. The
instrument tumbled down the stone steps of the amphitheater, clanging and
sproinging.
Austin lowered his bow. “You okay?”
“I…yes, of course.”
But I was not okay. For a few moments, I had experienced the bliss of my
formerly easy talent. Yet, clearly, my new mortal fingers were not up to the task.
My hand muscles were sore. Red lines dug into my finger pads where I had
touched the fret board. I had overextended myself in other ways, too. My lungs
felt shriveled, drained of oxygen, even though I had done no singing.

felt shriveled, drained of oxygen, even though I had done no singing.
“I’m…tired,” I said, dismayed.
“Well, yeah.” Valentina nodded. “The way you were playing was unreal!”
“It’s okay, Apollo,” Austin said. “You’ll get stronger. When demigods use

their powers, especially at first, they get tired quickly.”
“But I’m not…”
I couldn’t finish the sentence. I wasn’t a demigod. I wasn’t a god. I wasn’t

even myself. How could I ever play music again, knowing that I was a flawed
instrument? Each note would bring me nothing but pain and exhaustion. My B
string would never be in tune.

My misery must have shown on my face.
Damien White balled his fists. “Don’t you worry, Apollo. It’s not your fault.
I’ll make that stupid guitar pay for this!”
I didn’t try to stop him as he marched down the stairs. Part of me took
perverse satisfaction in the way he stomped the guitar until it was reduced to
kindling and wires.
Chiara huffed. “Idiota! Now I’ll never get my turn!”
Woodrow winced. “Well, um…thanks, everyone! Good class!”

Archery was an even bigger travesty.
If I ever become a god again (no, not if; when, when), my first act will be to

wipe the memories of everyone who saw me embarrass myself in that class. I hit
one bull’s-eye. One. The grouping on my other shots was abysmal. Two arrows
actually hit outside the black ring at a mere one hundred meters. I threw down
my bow and wept with shame.

Kayla was our class instructor, but her patience and kindness only made me
feel worse. She scooped up my bow and offered it back to me.

“Apollo,” she said, “those shots were fantastic. A little more practice and—”
“I’m the god of archery!” I wailed. “I don’t practice!”
Next to me, the daughters of Nike snickered.
They had the insufferably appropriate names Holly and Laurel Victor. They
reminded me of the gorgeous, ferociously athletic African nymphs Athena used
to hang out with at Lake Tritonis.
“Hey, ex-god,” Holly said, nocking an arrow, “practice is the only way to
improve.” She scored a seven on the red ring, but she did not seem at all
discouraged.
“For you, maybe,” I said. “You’re a mortal!”
Her sister, Laurel, snorted. “So are you now. Suck it up. Winners don’t
complain.” She shot her arrow, which landed next to her sister’s but just inside